When a customer wishes to buy an item from a supplier and requires financing, the customer often requests terms of repayment from the supplier. The supplier may decline to provide the customer a line of credit if the customer is either unknown to the supplier or the risk of the customer not repaying the supplier is perceived as too great. The customer will then usually contact his or her lending institution to apply for a monetary loan. After checking the customer's business information and business credit standing, as well as their personal information and credit history, a representative of the lending institution informs the customer of the loan amount, period, and interest rate for which he or she is eligible. If the customer agrees to the terms of the loan, the representative of the lending institution delivers documentation to the customer that, when executed, grants the lending institution a security interest in the purchased product for the monetary loan.
The ways in which people purchase goods has significantly progressed since the development of the worldwide web (WWW). Customers can now shop from the convenience of their home, office, or while on the road using portable devices.
With the advantages of electronic commerce (e-commerce), many aspects of the above process for obtaining financing for purchases may now be performed online. However, while these and other online options are often much more convenient than their manual counterparts, they still require time and effort from the customer, and require the customer to provide sufficient securities to the lending institution before financing may be secured. Such solutions therefore cause inconvenience to the user, delaying the user's purchase and discouraging further purchases. Such solutions may additionally increase the computing resources needed to complete a transaction by requiring additional displays to the user and/or inputs from the user before financing may be secured.
In many cases, users browsing e-commerce websites hesitate to make a purchase due to a lack of sufficient funds or available financing. This hesitation results in lost revenue for merchants. Currently, at best merchants can offer payments through already validated means, such as credit cards. The payment offers are the same to all customers regardless if the customer holds or does not hold a credit card. That is, merchants cannot offer financing options tailored to a specific customer. Further, such offers cannot be made as the customer browses an e-commerce website.
It would therefore be advantageous to overcome the limitations of the prior art by providing an effective way for merchants to offer financing options specifically tailored to customers currently browsing their e-commerce websites.